The truth is, Trump’s attempt to close on the Moscow real estate deal did not end in January 2016, as Cohen had previously told members of Congress, but continued through June, when it became apparent that Donald Trump would likely win the nomination. If fact, it went right up to the point when Wikileaks began dumping Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence. Here, from the New York Times, is some of the background on we learned today by way of Mueller’s court filings.

…In January 2016, according to Mueller’s document, Cohen had a 20-minute conversation with the assistant to a Russian official in which he sought Russia’s help moving the project forward. The next day, Felix Sater, a Trump associate identified in the court filing as “Individual 2,” wrote Cohen to tell him he’d heard from Putin’s office. Cohen made plans to travel to Russia, calling them off only on June 14, which happened to be the day that The Washington Post first reported that Russian government hackers had penetrated Democratic National Committee computers. At one point, Cohen and Sater were also coordinating with figures in Moscow about a potential Trump visit in connection with the project…

This, by the way, is the first time that Mueller has named Trump and Putin together in the same filing document. Furthermore, it’s the first time his team has publicly referenced the Trump Tower Moscow project. All of this is significant.

None of this should be a surprise to anyone who reads the news, of course. We’d known for some time that Trump had been pursuing a development in Moscow through his shady associates like Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, and it had been speculated by many that Trump had been offered the Moscow development in return for his work to delegitimize the Clinton campaign, and sow discord on behalf of Vladimir Putin and the Russians. Now, though, we’re starting to see it all confirmed. We’re starting to see how the pieces fit together, and how a decision was made, once it became clear that Trump was going to win the nomination, that they had to change course. [Trump and Cohen, we’ve recently learned, both had planned to travel to Moscow to attend meetings about the project. These plans were cancelled, however, when it became clear that Trump would win the nomination.]

What likely happened is that Trump, a grifter by trade, saw an opportunity to enrich himself during the Republican primary by beating up on Clinton on behalf of Putin and the Russians. His reward would be the tallest skyscraper in Moscow. And that was the plan. While he likely thought that he might win the Republican primary, he probably never dreamed that he could win against Clinton, and, to be honest, he really didn’t try that hard. He didn’t assemble a serious team. He didn’t really invest in any ground game to speak of. He just talked a lot, shooting from the hip, and being himself, which apparently resonated with quite a few reality-television-loving Americans. The goal was never to win, though. The goal was to beat the hell out of Clinton, cast a lot of doubt on the American electoral system, wreak some havoc, and cash in. Trump likely envisioned himself quietly playing golf come mid-November surrounded by the world’s best sex workers, and settling into the lucrative role of red state firebrand, delivering the occasional speech on how “Crooked Hillary stole the election,” and selling MAGA merch manufactured in China by the boatload. That’s not how it played out, though.

Here, for those of you who might be new to all of this, is something I’d written in July of 2016, just after the Republican National Convention, followed by a few excerpts from the above-mentioned dossier about Michael Cohen’s work in Russia on behalf of Donald Trump.

…Just before the Republican National Convention, the Republican party released their new platform for 2016. The New York Times called it “the most extreme Republican platform in memory.” Among other things, according to the Times, this new platform outlined positions “making no exceptions for rape or women’s health in cases of abortion; requiring the Bible to be taught in public high schools; selling coal as a ‘clean’ energy source; demanding a return of federal lands to the states; insisting that legislators use religion as a guide in lawmaking; appointing ‘family values’ judges; barring female soldiers from combat; and rejecting the need for stronger gun controls — despite the mass shootings afflicting the nation every week.” This apparently came to pass largely because Donald Trump, who would go on just a few days later to accept the party’s nomination for President, didn’t push back. With one notable exception, Trump and his team, accepted everything that was suggested without debate.

Seems like, once again, the information gathered by Christopher Steele was right on the money, doesn’t it?

For what it’s worth, the dossier also noted how the Trump team changed the GOP platform to be more Russia-friendly, saying that the Trump campaign did it in return for the Wikileaks dump of DNC emails, which, coincidentally, happened just before the Republican National Convention.

One other thing to note. It’s extremely interesting that the Cohen plea happened today, not even a week after Donald Trump submitted his written answers, under penalty of perjury, to the Mueller team. We can assume that, in his answers, he flatly refused any real estate deal with the Russian government was pending. And, if that’s the case, Mueller can now file perjury charges against him. [Trump likely also said in his sworn statement that he didn’t know about the infamous meeting between his son and top campaign officials having met with Russian operatives at Trump Tower in New York City during the campaign. This too will likely be proven to be a lie.]

75 Comments

Now that this rock solid turd is pushing its way through the fan, I think its time to ask why the hell would Trump do this to himself? I mean, I think its honestly worth asking is he wants to be president at all? He seems completely disinterested in policy issues, he can’t talk about his Nafta reforms, health care changes, tax cuts, or foreign policy without getting almost every detail wrong. He can’t pay attention in meetings, he only talks about himself, and he talks about the government as if he’s not the person in charge.

I’ve always assumed that him running for president was kind of a stunt for his brand. He didn’t want to win and didn’t expect to win. So he thought why not see what else he could get for himself while he was at it. Manafort was probably on the same page, assumed trump would lose but could get himself off of a few Russian hit lists if he could sell influence with the Republican Party.

I think someday we’ll probably look back at Trump as a kind of tragic figure, a needy pathetic person who stumbled into treason. But he deserves whats coming, and once this starts the federal judiciary is going to make an example of him as a warning to anyone else in the future (as in jail and taking all of his family’s money).

It was a perfect storm. I agree that he likely didn’t want the job. Things just story of took on a life of their own as different forces began exerting themselves. I suspect he wanted to run an anti-Clinton media empire. Others, however, had a different plan. And now here we are. Nudged over the finish line by Russia, fans of reality television, and white supremacists terrified of an evolving America, he found himself in the White House. I’ve heard it said the they only person more upset than Hillary Clinton on election night was Donald Trump, and I believe it. He had to know that it was just a matter of time. These past two years have to have been hell for him. While I suspect he loves the rallies, where he can just spout bullshit and get lots of applause, the other stuff has to be a fate worse than death for him, sitting in meetings with his intellectual superiors, knowing that they all know he’s a fraud. If it were a series, I’d love it. In real life, though, it’s not so great. Hopefully, when the reckoning comes, it’s so overwhelming that no one ever attempts it again.

“Hopefully, when the reckoning comes, it’s so overwhelming that no one ever attempts it again.”

Are you kidding? Trump has proven to the Republicans it doesn’t really matter if everyone knows their figurehead is an incompetent, malicious, self-dealing, fraud. As long as they can keep their base energized with xenophobic posturing and conspiracy theories. When they’re done with Trump they will find another.

The iceberg of lies, deceit, corruption, & criminality is steadily but surely surfacing, despite the efforts of many in high places to keep it submerged. How large is the iceberg & who will be found clinging to it? The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.

Last year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed Cohen’s outreach on the Trump Tower Moscow deal received no response. As Cohen’s plea demonstrates, they lied. They helped Trump by providing false corroboration. This is a counterintelligence nightmare.

It wouldn’t make sense to say that to myself. I started posting here to have discussions but got piled on by a bunch of idiots. Since you never say anything meaningful it’s on you to try to actually have a discussion.

Trump will be fine as usual and this will be just another embarrassing failure for you. When the shit really hits it will dawn on you that I have been light years ahead of all of you for a long time.

The whole thing is about money laundering. We have known that since word one. Any “collusion” over the election was secondary. The Russians never wanted him to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. They just needed the illusion of a project to launder money, and circumvent sanctions. Trump is about to find out why he needed to stop doing business as usual when he decided to run for President. It was never about getting elected, but always about getting more money.

HW and EOS of course have the Pence fall back position. The Democrats (who seem to have no intention of initiating impeachment) can hope that Trump holds on till 2020, when he will continue to drag the Republican brand into the dirt. Look for the Republicans in the Senate to tell Trump to go some time next spring (ala Goldwater telling Nixon it was over). That will give Pence enough time to rally the party.

The Democratic Party better come up with a better strategy than the Russians did it before the next election or we end up with President Pence for life. How about A Green New Deal, Medicare for All and we bring the troops home from the war zones. Maybe even Hillary could get elected on that platform.

The President doesn’t have to hold on. If he engaged in laundering where is the evidence? Mueller should have been all over it months ago. He’s reaching for something that isn’t there. All of you are. You do that then just bold face lie about allllll the corruption and crime President Trump is standing up to. Think about it: my position, as far out as it seemed a year ago has only gotten stronger. Every single thing you got excited about turned out to be nothing. How could that be if your view is correct?

Nothing we predicted has come true? There are 33 actual indictments against real live people now. Out of those 33, we have multiple guilty pleas and several convictions, including of senior staff of the Trump administration.

I thought Q told you Mueller was a Trump ally who was covering for the 5000 unsealed indictments? I thought Hillary was supposed to be in jail by now. I thought Obama was going to be revealed as a Kenyan by now. I thought that now we’d know who was really behind the JFK assassination. Name one prediction you made that came true….You can’t. You are just making excuses for why all your predictions fail to come true, like a doomsday fetishist making excuses for his leader on why the end of the world was off just by a few years.

You say your position has gotten stronger. Name one way it’s gotten stronger.

Who is willing to bet that HW basically spends his day switching back and forth between porn and angry comments online all day? Any good sites you want to share with the rest of us buddy? Have you gone outside with mom today or just a fap and rage in the basement kind of day?

Who wants to bet that HW just spends his time switching between jerking off and posting batshit conservative crap all day? Any good sites you want to share buddy? I’d pay $50 to see your internet history, I’m sure the FBI would too (not for your deviant politics either).

Did you go outside with your mom today or is a rage and fap in the basement day? Lemmeknow, thanks man.

re:”How about A Green New Deal, Medicare for All and we bring the troops home from the war zones. Maybe even Hillary could get elected on that platform.”

I don’t know. Bernie Sanders ran on that kind of platform and couldn’t even get the party nomination. I am not sure that those ideas are quite ready for most Americans to get behind to the degree where they matter much in national elections. Not yet at any rate but I expect we will move into those positions in the future. I guess we will see how much so during the next primary season.

Come on. Hillary snaked it. All this self-righteous talk about threats to democracy by Clintonites is ridiculous. You guys need to get rid of superdelegates now and torpedo any hint of corruption in your party. Selling the party to a candidate and just declaring them the winner? You must see how bad that is.

“Corporatist Dems preach the virtue of being “pragmatic” in their approach to governing, which is code for providing the smallest incremental change they can get away with, yet they’ll still claim they’re changing things while preserving the status quo.

For instance, they mock the idea of universal health care — something wanted by 90% of registered Democrats, 70% of independents and 53% of registered Republicans — saying it’s not practical to “give everybody a pony”, and they say it’s “pragmatic” to “strengthen” Romneycare, er, I mean Obamacare. This idea provides greater profits in taxpayer money to the health insurance giants, and it still leaves many millions of Americans without coverage.

I hope everyone reads the Miami Herald article. The Republican scumbags who helped Epstein get this plea deal not only included Acosta, but also Dershowitz, and Kenneth Starr. I’m almost surprised that Rudy does not show up in this list of Epstein attorney’s.

I guess you never have stopped to consider the consequences of suddenly shifting to a single payer universal system? There actually are good arguments about taking a more gradual approach. It allows people working in the industry time to adjust for one thing. There is also the reality that a lot of people benefit from the current system and they have powerful lobbies. How to combat that when so few Americans understand the economic realities of the situation, i.e. a single payer public option might cost us a lot initially but over time it would likely save us all a LOT of money. People don’t understand that and I am not sure how to convince them.

At any rate, while it may be true that 90% of registered democrats say that they want universal health care, I have to wonder how many of those 90% would prefer beefing up the ACA rather than scrapping it for a single payer system? Universal health care is possible with only minor tweeks to the ACA after all. Universal health care is not necessarily a single payer system or the same as a national government provided health system.

Single payer could be accomplished easily with a 5 or 10 year expansion of Medicare. The Green New Deal would mobilize young people, working folks and everyone who cares about the future. Other than war mongers and corporate shills, no one wants the wars to just keep going on and on.

Instead we will have a Democrat who wants to tweek the ACA, talk about a carbon tax, but only as long as we continue to frack, and maybe we will pull some troops out of Afghanistan, some day. That will mobilize voters to stand up to the evangelical christian fascist won’t it.

You are walking into a trap with Epstein. The more you howl about it the more likely your people are going to be exposed. If it is bad for Acosta to let him off light then it must be worse to be going to the island constantly. You think they were just chilling by the pool?

Why don’t you do your Iron Derp two-year-old-on-crack little spaz-outs all the time anymore? I thought that was terrible for what this site is trying to accomplish so it was good. I think you actually drove people away.

Anonimal– ” I think its time to ask why the hell would Trump do this to himself? I mean, I think its honestly worth asking is he wants to be president at all? ” The answer is simple ego and all the delusions that carries. He got elected because, as his campaign managers have stated, he loved the applause. He would have hours long rambling stump speeches and whatever the audience applauded, he would repeat over and over again. (Bernie wasn’t much different.) Trump was in effect the perfect populist candidate because he didn’t care about policy, he just cared about attacking his enemies and saying what people wanted to hear.

I honestly hope he is mortally wounded but holds on the presidency through the 2020 campaign. I don’t want Pence to be the alternative. I want a Dem to be the alternative.

Anyone catch the image of Putin high fiving Mohamed bin Salman with shit eating grins like frat boys who got away with murder…. over and over again. Wobblie’s fanatsy of the US retreating from war zones and peace breaking out in the middle east is a dangerous but common one on the left. There are people even more expansionist and brutal than the US out there and they are making a lot of ground while we fail to step up to our FP obligations, not just the military ones. Russia just attacked Ukrainian ships on Sunday. Trump canceled a formal meet-up in response and then restated an informal meeting with Putin anyway.

I know the US are predatory foreign corporatist assholes but there are worse actors on the foreign stage. PS Bernie Sanders FP plan was not to draw down our forces abroad; it was basically the same as Clintons except for the stupid Saudi idea. It’s actually not that easy for us to remove ourselves from these situations without them becoming even worse. I have some hope that Europe and others will step up. More voices weighing in on fp and more diversified power in the West would be good. Lack of ally faith in the US in the Trump era offers us that one possible advantage.

I think HW is doing a great job at clogging up the comment sidebar with the same material. I suggest we create shortcuts for him. I’ll start. #dislikeJean #Qblahblahblah #hugTrump #pizzagate #adrenochrome #potcuresall #smartestguyinYpsi

JH, I have never said that Peace will break out in the middle east. What would happen if we pulled away is we would stop being the aggressor. We have illegally invaded 3 countries and provide support for the Yemeni genocide. We have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. These are war crimes and at some point we will be made to pay for these crimes. Our retreat into fortress American and the constant Russiophobia are clear examples of us losing the “generational war” that the Bushites launched. It is like you are totally ignorant of history. The last time we lost a war (1975) we paid a high economic price, this time it is likely to be much worse. We either learn to get along with other countries, or they will make us irrelevant. I’m sure you will be jumping on the Ukrainian war band wagon next–it was a Ukonazi provocation–you probably think the fascist in Kiev are a legitimate government Like I said earlier it is only corporate shills and war mongers who want the wars to continue.

I predict #dislikeJean will be trending on MM.com soon. For some reason, I take perverse pleasure in that. Maybe I am a troll after all, but a mostly sincere troll– So, Troll-adjacent. It’s a small world here; somebody has to be the bad guy. And we all know bad guy is the meatiest role.

What a big nothing. I guess it all depends on how you define “has”. When asked, he said he has no deal in Russia to build a skyscraper.”And now we find out he was talking about it when he was a private citizen before holding any elected office. And where is the smoking gun? Where are they hiding this non-existent skyscraper?

As for the Republican platform – it was the best in my lifetime. Why would he push back? The one item he did change, not wanting to arm a country to start a war with Russia was also fantastic. Here we had a candidate that might not start WW3. Maybe he wouldn’t promote a “new world order” and endless war. Certainly not a reason to not support him as a candidate.

And whether or not Russia also hacked Clinton’s emails, Assange has repeatedly denied they were his source. It appeared that nearly everyone hacked her unsecured servers where she stored classified materials.

Two years of investigating whether Trump, who has business all over the world, was secretive about possible business in Russia is a poor smokescreen to avoid the real issue.

When will Hilliary, Comey, Lynch, and Wasserman be charged for their actual illegal activities?

Lynn, Medicare for All would save us 5.1 trillion over 10 years. Enough to pay for free college, or help finance the Green New Deal. We end the senseless wars and we could build an economy that leaves no one behind. End the ceaseless economic insecurity and racism and sexism will no longer have fertile ground in which to grow.

The only way Medicare for all would save a dime would be through restricting access to effective treatments for those who currently have earned good health care through employment choices. Why not Medicare for all those who currently lack insurance without destroying the health care options of those who have worked hard for them?

@EOS
Medicare for all can save money by setting limits on payments. Private American health insurers pay more for procedures than Medicare does, that’s why Medicare is pretty affordable from a per insured standpoint. Now, that just means that doctors get paid less, and you could take the perspective that private insurance subsidizes Medicare/Medicaid by overpaying. The difference in many countries with lower costs, including those with public or private systems, is that doctors make way less money and hospitals are not so nice. I don’t know if thats what we want here.

I personally don’t know the answer to this one, I’d like to see some competition to bring down the cost of services. Right now, the best insurances try to reduce unnecessary tests, get people to choose lower cost places, etc. The problem is that the providers don’t compete with each other on cost. We have a strange dialogue in this calling out the insurers as the “problem”, when really is providers that drive up costs.

anonimal
“Competition” to bring down cost is another one of the myths that we have been force fed for 40 years. Where is the evidence that “competition” actually decreases overall cost to society, or to the individual? We started off de-regulating air travel to “foster” competition, the average price of airfare in constant dollars is more than in 1963.

“Fifty-three years ago, the average cost of a flight from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport cost $41, or the equivalent of $323 in today’s dollars. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), last year’s average was $392.”

Name any industry that we have de-regulated or privatized and you will see that the increased cost of that item or service has exceeded what it cost prior to de-regulation or privatization.

Public education is currently being dismantled. I’ve not seen any decrease in my property taxes. Transportation has been deregulated, cost continue to escalate. Medical care was in fact deregulated under Nixon in 1973 (prior to that the medical industry was functionally non-profit). Since the allowance of for profit HMO’s (they were supposed to provide competition and reduce cost) cost have increased substantially. “In 2016, U.S. health care costs were $3.3 trillion. That makes health care one of the country’s largest industries. It equals 17.9 percent of gross domestic product. In comparison, health care cost $27.2 billion in 1960, just 5 percent of GDP. That translates to an annual health care cost of $10,348 per person in 2016 versus just $146 per person in 1960. Health care costs have risen faster than the average annual income.” also of interest, “The nation’s reliance on the health insurance model increased administration costs. A 2003 study found that administration made up 30 percent of U.S. health care costs. It’s twice the administrative costs in Canada. About half of that is due to the complexity of billing.”

“Sometimes you go to Wall Street and folks will be grumbling about anti-business,” Obama said during an event hosted by Rice’s University Baker Institute. “And I say, ‘Have you checked where your stocks were when I came into office and where they are now? What are you talking about, what are you complaining about? Just say thank you, please.’”

Also– Oil independence matters to foreign policy goals; See Saudi Arabia. Obama didn’t do enough re climate action but he did some good especially towards the end. I was unhappy with a lot that he did, but none of this seems counter to what he presented himself as being in the election or after– basically a pragmatic and progressive moderate. Progressive means incremental. And he was. It’s all a lot of nothing, so only right wing and far left news outlets are running it. Nothing new in it. Obama never pretended to be anything but a friend to Wall Street.

Bob– I agree with you that the Cinton statement on European immigration was wrong-headed but it was the opposite of an appeal to the electorate. They don’t give a damn about European immigration. She’s not going to run. Bernie might. Better if both steer clear.

@wobblie
Well, not to cast doubt on the fine people at Travel and Leisure Magazine, but according to the Atlantic prices have fallen. Like you probably will, I found some counter arguments saying that costs went up. I don’t know which are right, and thats really besides the point.

I’m not saying that the medical sector should be deregulated, I’m saying that the difference between American systems and European systems is that European (and some Asian ones) regulate how much money doctors and hospitals can charge. Those insurance systems vary, some a private, some are public. There’s just not that much cost to be cut on the insurer side.

Is that the system that we want, where we in effect limit the salary of providers? I’d argue it isn’t, Ann Arbor would be hit pretty hard by that. So, in the mean time, I’d like to see someone try to do something different to bring down the cost of service (service not insurance). Maybe its time for public hospitals again? I have no idea.

Also, some regulations exist to create more competition. So just because I would like to see more competition doesn’t mean I don’t want new regulation.

Lastly, Bernie’s numbers on health admin cost was 12-18%, sizable but not 30%. You are getting some pretty random sources for your info btw, wtf is “the balance”? (I just googled it, its a shitty corporate-run personal finance blog) . Did you just google until you found the highest estimate?

@wobblie
Re: general competition, its almost too stupid to reply to, but how about Tesla bringing down the cost of electric cars? Or Cree the cost of LED lights? Or Dell the cost of a PC? Or GE the cost of household refrigeration? Or Ford and the cost of the automobile generally? Or Amazon and the cost of books? The list goes on. Yes many of these companies have done bad things, but you can trace all things back to a downside.

I’d grant you that bringing down costs in established markets is hard. Also, deregulation is not always a good thing: see 2008 financial crisis. But the idea that competition doesn’t bring down costs in some cases is ridiculous, just as ridiculous as the idea that competition drives down costs in all cases.

amonimal,
Almost all basic science research is paid for with our tax dollars. Tesla has not brought down the cost of electric cars. Your subsides and tax credits which folks utilize to purchase Tesla’s is what has brought the price down. Appliances are only cheaper because nearly every appliance on the market is made in countries where labor is dirt cheap (though just started looking for new washer and dryer and they are hundreds of dollars more than 20 years ago). Almost all your books are also printed in cheap labor markets now (30 years ago publishing was the 2nd. largest private industry in Ann Arbor after auto–now both are practically dead here). The cost of autos gone down in price? Don’t know what world you live in. Bought my only new car in 1975 Ford Pinto $2000.00. Cheapest car on the market today is the Ford Fiesta at $13,000 plus. That is a 650% increase. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices in 2015 are 340.55% higher than prices in 1975. The price of a new car has increased at nearly twice the rate of inflation.

Don’t know how old you are anomimal, but objectively almost all Americans are in substantially worse economic shape than we were 50 years ago. The American people have been subjected to relentless propaganda about the efficacy of markets as if they are some how magic.

Falling standard of livings, falling life expectancy, rising infant mortality, whole cities being subjected to lead poisoning–when it was discovered that we were poisoning the people of Times Beach in 1983 with toxic chemicals–, the town was completely evacuated, now we give you a water filter and say tough beans.

The debate in economics has always been between on the one hand private monopoly pricing and government control. Striking the balance that creates the greatest good for the most people is what Government policy at its best should be about. Obviously the Republican tax cuts failed in that department.

At one point I mentioned that this blog just attracts people from the bottom of the barrel, “on both sides”, I mean you when speaking of the left. Whens the last time you had a job? Hell, I don’t even care if you work, but when’s the last time you even contributed something valuable….to anything. Do you just sit around, scouring the internet for things to be afraid of all day?

Every time I have a boring couple of days and I try to leave a comment on here, EOS, Wobblie, HW, all remind me why the internet is such a fucking awful place.

If you are just wandering around in the dark then a lot of things might seem awful that are fine. You asked to describe one way my position gotten stronger. I have pointed out that many of the anti-Trump corrupt officials have been fired and some are under investigation. That’s probably an understatement but we will see about that.

Re: Lynn, “Medicare for All would save us 5.1 trillion over 10 years. Enough to pay for free college, or help finance the Green New Deal. We end the senseless wars and we could build an economy that leaves no one behind. End the ceaseless economic insecurity and racism and sexism will no longer have fertile ground in which to grow.”

You don’t have to convince me that Medicare for all would save us money. You also don’t have to convince me that it would be prudent to reduce our military spending, particularly that which occurs during unnecessary wars. It is the majority of the small group of voters who vote in primaries who need to be convinced.

As anonimal has pointed out, there are concerns and they are valid concerns. A single payer system really is likely to result in lower salaries for medical professionals. A solution to that is strong unions but we dont have those in place now. So then what? Do you put language into a possible bill that would address this? What if such a bill can’t get passed? How can that concern be addressed in a realistic way?

June 3, 2016: Donald Trump Jr. learns by email that Russians want to give the Trump campaign “very high level and sensitive information,” provided by the Russian government, that could “incriminate Hillary.” He responds: “If it’s what you say I love it.”

June 7: Donald Trump promises a “major speech” about “all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.” Trump sets the speech for the following week.

June 9: The meeting takes place, but by most accounts, nothing of value on Clinton is offered. Still, the fact that it did take place — and was attended by Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort — confirms the campaign’s eagerness to conspire with Russian attempts to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf.

June 14-15: It becomes public, thanks to reporting in The Post and a statement from the cyber-sleuth firm hired by the Democratic National Committee, that Russian government hackers penetrated the DNC’s network.

June 15: Trump puts out a statement claiming that the DNC faked the hacking — in effect absolving Russia of any role.

July 22: WikiLeaks releases the stolen emails, shedding light on all sorts of embarrassing internal details involving Clinton and the DNC.

July 24-25: Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. both once again absolve Russia of any blame for the hack. Trump Jr. dismisses the idea as a “lie,” and his father dismisses it as a “joke.”

July 26: Donald Trump tweets that he has “ZERO investments in Russia.” According to BuzzFeed News, the Russian-born developer working on the project takes this as the signal that the deal isn’t going to happen.

July 27: Trump says this about Clinton’s emails: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” By coincidence or not, that same day, according to an indictment filed by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Russian intelligence tried to hack Clinton’s personal servers.

@HW
So you are saying that the proof that your position is stronger is that there have been firings and investigations of Democratic operatives around the Obamas and Clintons. Despite not having any publicly available evidence against them yet, we know that eventually they are going to be brought to their knees? And we know that they must be corrupt to because they are implicated through association by these other investigations, and its clearly just a matter of time?

It’s a stronger position than before these investigations began, yes. We know they bought uncorroborated (at best) information from Russians to try to influence or overturn the election. They pretended that the “dossier” was an actual news item when they are the ones who fed it to the reporter to obtain FISA warrants on Trump campaign people. That’s bad enough right there.

Lol, okay. So its clear that they are corrupt, but its not because (this me trying to echo some of the things you’ve said, not my perspective) of the people around them. Its not Podesta, its not Weiner, or Huma, or Comey, or Strozk, or any of them, you just know it because its obvious.

Well similarly, its not Manafort(guilty), Papadopoulos(guilty), Gates(guilty), Flynn(guilty), Pinedo, van der Zwaan, Kilimnik, Cohen, Patten, Corsi, or Stone that make me think that Trump is corrupt. Its just that its been apparent to me forever.

You act like the lack of an indictment on the POTUS within a year of an investigations start point is evidence that now corruption has been found. Its pretty clear to me that the investigation just hasn’t finished yet. You don’t go to the hoop on the President unless you know its a slam dunk.

To draw an analogy, lets say you were in space, and you started finding some giant balls of rock, maybe planet sized, all floating in suspiciously circular paths around some central point. Now, you might just say that these things are coincidental to the glowing orange hydrogen ball in middle of it, or, you might start to wonder if they are in fact in orbit around said orange bag of hot air. Similarly, its absolutely possible that Trump found himself surrounded by corrupt people. Or, it could be a sign that he’s the steaming pile of shit bringing the flies to the picnic. I’ll go with the latter.

If you had come to me 20 years ago, and said Bill Cosby and Donald Trump, in 20 years, one of them is going to revolutionize the Republican Party, becoming president in an unprecedented populist wave that the took the world by storm. And that the other has secretly been drugging and raping women for years and will spend the remainder of their life in prison.

Anonimal– HW does not acknowledge his own double standards– which are abundant. He is probably twisting his brain right now to come up with the rhetorical equivalent of “I know you are but what am I?” That’s his standard defensive posture.

“Lol, okay. So its clear that they are corrupt, but its not because (this me trying to echo some of the things you’ve said, not my perspective) of the people around them. Its not Podesta, its not Weiner, or Huma, or Comey, or Strozk, or any of them, you just know it because its obvious.”

You don’t pay attention to what I say. For one thing: Uranium 1. 145 million into Clinton Foundation coffers from Frank Giustra after the State Department approved the deal. It’s not illions of gajillions like the big boys play with but to the Clintons that’s probably a nice stack of cash. 145 million to the Clintons from the guy who sold it to Russia, who had been conducting illegal operations in the US related to uranium. People on here want to know what I’m on though? What are you on?

Jean, you can’t even see that it’s not rhetoric. The many times I have pointed out that you embody exactly what you accuse other people of I have shown you why with your own ideas. It’s not in a childish sense like you think. Yeah, right like: “I’ma put on my magic force field so nothing you say can get to me!”